Publishing marketing as one of the channels of reading culture formation (in Tomsk Oblast)

The problem of reader practices should be studied from a marketing standpoint because of the fact that changes in the reading culture of Russians affect the structure of the consumer book market. The loss of reading culture among potential customers should lead publishing professionals to a thought of having to reclaim not only the consumer, but the connoisseur of books, especially among young people. And one of the ways is the use of publishing marketing not just as a tool for dissemination of printed materials, but also as a powerful weapon of book propaganda. Information on target audiences that resulted from the publishing marketing process can be actively used not only to solve the immediate problems of the sale of printed production, but also to promote reading as a basis for the formation of Russian literary culture, without which the publishers will continue to lose their customers. Thus, the research objectives are: 1) to examine the specificity of the publishing marketing on the example of Tomsk book market; 2) to consider marketing processes in terms of book culture promotion. To achieve the objectives, in March and September 2014 surveys were conducted among a number of Tomsk publishers and bookstores on their marketing policy. The following results were obtained from the data analysis. The most important result of market research for publishing should be information about their readers and their pricing preferences and market behavior. This data can then be used to promote book culture. However, as the survey showed, most publishers (75 %) and distributors (86 %) do not accompany the organization and conducting marketing campaigns by market research due to its high cost. Even if market research is done, its results are not systematized and are not used to promote the reading culture. The survey shows that a major source for publishing reader's evaluation is still not the reader, but analysis of sales and opinions of experts and booksellers. The main objectives of marketing activities of the publishing system participants are focused on the issues of increasing sales (78 %) and informing about new books (18 %). While the problem of retention and promotion of consumers (3 %), the image of a publishing house (1 %) and reading promotion (0 %) are not in the priority. In fact there are no joint marketing activities undertaken by publishers, booksellers, libraries. Basically, librarians are initiators of joint activities (e.g., the Tomsk Book fair organized by the Regional Pushkin Library). The vast majority of respondents believe that marketing communications hardly develop in the Tomsk publishing system. There is no dialogue between publishers and readers. The publishing industry is not functioning as a unified information system and it hinders joint actions to promote reading. The author concludes that in today's regional publishing system marketing issues are still a random element of the publishing process, and marketing campaigns mainly pursue the purpose of selling books, but do not promote reading and the formation of reading culture, without which publishers lose their potential consumer.

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